


a ghost with a beating heart

by princessoftheworlds



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Embedded Images, Identity Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 00:29:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: “It changeseverything,” Bucky insists. His voice, with its faded Brooklyn accent and its gravelly tone, causes Steve’s heart to twinge painfully. “I’m not Bucky Barnes. I never was. The real Bucky Barnes died when he fell off a train in 1945.”





	a ghost with a beating heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/gifts).



> To the lovely [Aundrea](http://taste-is-sweet.tumblr.com/). Thank you for bidding and donating for Marvel Trumps Hate.

“When did you know?”

The question hangs heavy in the blistering silence between them, and Steve fixes Bucky with a steady glance for the first time since he learned that it’s not steady bones and flowing blood beneath Bucky’s realistic skin but complex wiring and the steady thrumming of an arc reactor battery instead.

“I’d always suspected,” Steve replies quietly, uttering none of the dozen responses flitting through his mind. _I knew the moment when we found you frozen at that HYDRA base in the mountains. When you looked exactly like you hadn’t aged a day, not even a wrinkle. When JARVIS’s scans revealed nothing. When. When. When._

But those are all lies, half-truths at best. Steve never knew; he never even suspected.

And Bucky knows that too. “Quit lying,” he murmurs, eyes cast to the floor. His backpack is still dropped on the floor from when Steve caught him climbing out the window.

“Tony uncovered something in the HYDRA files,” Steve says before rushing on, “but that doesn’t change anything.”

Bucky glances up, and the ferocity in his gaze dries up words caught on Steve’s tongue. It’s hard to believe that the cerulean of his eyes that Steve adores is a combination of different hand-crafted acrylics and glass.

“It changes _everything_ ,” Bucky insists. His voice, with its faded Brooklyn accent and its gravelly tone, causes Steve’s heart to twinge painfully. “I’m not Bucky Barnes. I never was. The real Bucky Barnes died when he fell off a train in 1945.”

“Don’t say that,” Steve pleads fruitlessly. “That’s not true. You remember your childhood, your sisters, _us._ ”

“Those were _programmed in_!” he cries back. “Don’t you get it, Steve? I’m just a metal skeleton they gave your best friend’s memories, a ghost with a beating heart. Someone just Frankensteined the shit outta me. God, I’m not even a person.”

_And what the fuck do you say to that?_

“Fine,” Steve says, words steady despite the bulldozing flutter of his heartbeat. “You’re not Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky, preparing another rhapsody, falters.

“You’re not Bucky Barnes,” Steve continues. “He did die when he fell off the train, but I did too when I crashed the _Valkyrie_ in the ice. We’re both not the Brooklyn boys we were seventy years ago.” He stares at Bucky, hoping that gaze can convey what his words might not. “But don’t say that you’re not a person. Because you are. HYDRA programmed you with the ghost of Bucky Barnes, but they wanted you to stay a machine. They made you into the Winter Soldier, but you overrode that. You brought him to life.”

“Those are all just pretty, meaningless words,” Bucky sneers, but some of the shadows in his eyes have eased away, though the watery glint of unshed tears remains.

“I promise you they’re not,” Steve replies. “Stay. Let’s prove my words right.” He turns and moves to the kitchen, hearing the window screech shut, and without looking back, he knows that Bucky is following.

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog the tumblr post [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/180401795169/a-ghost-with-a-beating-heart-for-taste-is-sweet).


End file.
